Lime Semolina Brown Sugar Cake

Inspired by Nigel Slater's Lemon Almond cake in The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in My Kitchen, one of my all time favourite cookbooks. Essentially a food diary of sorts - sourcing, shopping, preparing, cooking and eating. Honest about his screw ups, at times boastful about his triumphs, and almost lyrical in a butch kind of way (less elegant than Nigella, I have to say) about the frangrance of chanterais melon, milkiness of white goats' cheese, etc etc, and the joys of shopping in London's Chinatown, middle eastern delis and farmers markets.

The original recipe calls for lemon and almonds. Nigel likes to use of almonds in his baking, I can't afford to. One good substitute I found was sugee, or semolina - it gives the crumbly texture and a additional sweet dimension to the cake. I also did away with the lemon slices and lemon syrup topping, as the result was sweet and moist enough for me. Instead I sprinkled the top of the cake with demerara sugar before popping it in the oven, for the added crunch. I am not sure if the result of what I made was what Nigel had in mind when he gave the recipe, but I am sure he'd appreciate my artistic license :).

Lime Semolina Brown Sugar Cake

1/2 cup butter, softened at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup lime juice

1/3 cup semolina

2 eggs

1 cup flour, mixed with 1 tsp baking powder

Demerara sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 160 deg C.

Cream the butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy.

Add the eggs one by one, mix thoroughly before adding the next one.

Fold in the semolina first, then alternately fold in the flour+baking powder mixture and lime juice. Work the batter just enough to incorporate everything.

Decant into two mini loaf pans (that's what I used). Sprinkle the tops with demerara sugar before baking for 20-30 minutes.